Background: In order to manage the large volume of user requests across all corporate administrative functions (e.g. finance, legal, human resources, marketing, etc.), reporting and analysis tools were needed to define user requirements, estimate resource requirements and allocations, estimate level of effort, prioritize concurrent and potentially conflicting activities and analyze the business case to evaluate the return on investment for new projects.

CTS Impact Solution: Using industry best practices, CTS performed the following:

• Project management
  • Develop and prepare project plans
  • Status reporting and updates to Steering Committee
• Program design and development
  • Design standard tools and templates
  • Develop prioritization model to evaluate organizational impact and level of effort
  • Formalized communications plan for frequent updates to user-community
  • Deployment of request management tracking tool (Primavera) to manage in-flight projects
• Conduct pilot
  • Meet with business owners to define requirements
  • Develop business cases to analyze ROI
  • Prepare project charters and projet plans
  • Liaison to IT and business community
• Program roll-out and on-going support
  • Train new Business Analysts on usage of standard processes and tools
  • Provide Interim Business Analysts to preform day-to-day activities

Background: As part of its new services to provide third-party accounting services to its clients, this Germany-based renewable energy company engaged CTS to develop planning and implementation tools to support the on-boarding and transition of their new clients to a standard accounting platform (SAP).

CTS Impact Solution:  The CTS Impact Project Manager provided deep experience to develop a standard transition plan as follows:

• Develop PMO tools
  • Standard project plan for Transition Services
  • Estimation model for proposal process
  • Resource/workload allocation model for accounting organization
  • Define key metrics and service levels

Once these standard planning tools and templates were in place, CTS Impact utilized these tools and provided a Transition team to manage the migration and integration of these new services into the client’s existing accounting function, and to provide interim accounting assistance during the transition as follows:

• Mapping of chart of accounts
• Data conversion and validation
• Interim accounting operations during transition
• Interim financial reporting (IFRS)
• Cross-training to internal staff
• Document standard operating procedures

Background: As a result of several major acquisitions, this CTS Impact client needed to update its Investment Operations processes in order to be scalable to support future business requirements.  Concurrently, the client was experiencing a high rate of staffing turnover in various management and staff roles.

CTS Impact Solution:

• Issue identification and resolution
  • Reconciliation and settlement
  • Trade operations
  • Data integrity
  • Pricing and performance
• Interim Operations Management
  • Performed Interim Directorship activities until new permanent hire in place and cross-trained
  • Month-end reporting and reconciliation activities
  • Key liaison to internal audit staff during controls review and remediation effort
  • Status updates to Executive Committee
• Optimization
  • Re-vamped organizational structure and drafted job descriptions
  • Designed standard processes
  • Documented standard operating procedures

With the rapid expansion of this investment management firm into new lines of business including investment banking and insurance, reporting requirements grew in both size and complexity.  To address its future reporting needs, the current financial system (Great Plains) needed to be replaced.

In addition, due to the complexity of its legal entity structure, including numerous joint ventures and minority-interest entities, along with foreign exchange transactions, an automated reporting tool was needed to consolidate financial results and report on them more efficiently.

As the Business Project Lead, CTS Impact provided a financial services industry-experienced Project Manager with significant capital markets background to assist with documentation of current processes in order to capture current state and to define future business requirements to support the software selection.

Once the new cloud-based software application was selected (Workday Financials and Workday HCM), CTS Impact supported the full life-cycle implementation of this tool, including re-design of the Chart of Accounts and other business processes, documentation of internal controls, user-acceptance (UAT) & systems testing, and end-user training, as well as post go-live support.

Concurrently, the CTS team assisted the management reporting team with its migration to Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) reporting tool and an Essbase business intelligence tool.  Significant data clean-up was performed to facilitate data conversion, along with documentation of standard operating procedures.  The financial system project design to go-live was completed ahead of schedule and under-budget due to the efficiency of experienced CTS Impact team, in collaboration with the internal staff.

In a parallel workstream, CTS Impact also provided hands-on report design expertise to automate short-term reporting processes until the new, long-term solutions were placed into production.

Other CTS Impact Services Provided:

• Asset Management – Investment Operations
  • Back-office optimization
  • Develop and document standard operating procedures
  • Interim staffing
• Internal Controls – Project management
  • SOC-1 readiness and reporting (and SAS 70 previously)
    • Perform risk assessment
    • Documentation of key controls
    • Perform testing
    • Liaison to external auditors

Background: This large multi-national investment management firm had numerous disparate Human Recourses software solutions which were not fully integrated, which led to inefficiencies and errors. Moreover, its Payroll system was not tied to the Human Resources system. As a result, the client’s goal was to implement one system to meet all of its payroll and human resources requirements.
Concurrently, this organization’s financial system needed to be replaced, since it was no longer meeting business needs related to financial reporting.

CTS Impact Solution:

In order to assist this multi-national financial services firm to select and implement a new Human Resources, Payroll and Financial System, CTS Impact provided a team with deep industry experience to lead the software selection, analysis and implementation of a new HR, Payroll and Financial system.

To compress the timeline of this complex project, and given the diverse functionality of these systems, the CTS Impact project team had a blend of hands-on experience in HR, payroll and accounting, rather than two independent functional teams.

Leveraging the CTS Impact Toolkit, CTS Impact worked closely with the client to document current processes in order to define requirements and to identify future state process improvements and system automation opportunities in each area:

• Human Resources
  • Benefits administration
  • Performance management
  • Applicant tracking/recruitment
  • Compensation management
• Payroll
• Accounting
  • Accounts payable
  • General ledger
  • Financial reporting

Once requirements were defined, the CTS Impact team developed a targeted RFP and led facilitated system demos to review a cross-section of software vendors including cloud and ERP options (UltiPro, Workday, and Oracle).

As a result of this integrated analysis, the client selected UltiPro.

In anticipation of the implementation of a new HR, Payroll and Financial system, CTS Impact worked with process owners to prepare for the implementation, including:

• Detail process analysis
• Facilitated process design workshops to identify the future state processes and to assist the software vendor with configuration decisions.
• Define new delegation of authority and approval levels to support auto-workflow processing
• Define system security levels and permissions
• Data clean-up (e.g. chart of accounts, vendor master file, job codes, skills & competencies, etc.)
• Definition of future state reporting requirements

Throughout the entire implementation, including design, configuration and testing of each of UltiPro’s modules, CTS Impact worked as an extension of the client’s teams to liaison with UltiPro’s technical configuration support teams.

Prior to go-live, CTS Impact developed tailored user-training documentation and job aids, including the client-specific standard operating procedures for cross-training.

In addition, to gain added efficiency and enhance controls, CTS Impact developed, tested and implemented a seamless integration between UltiPro Payroll and NetSuite.

Once go-live, CTS Impact provided post go-live support to ensure the systems were achieving the client’s business needs and to facilitate knowledge transfer.  Also, CTS Impact developed standard reporting using UltiPro’s business intelligence (BI) tool.

Subsequently, CTS Impact assisted this client with the implementation of additional HR applications including HighGround (performance management) and Avature (applicant-tracking & recruitment).

CTS Impact provided continuity of staff throughout the entire life-cycle to eliminate any unnecessary ramp-up time and to avoid costs to the client.

Background: As a result of a spin-off and subsequent IPO, this CTS client needed to demonstrate compliance with SOX 404 requirements. Previously, this company was an operating subsidiary of another larger firm, and did not have in-house expertise.   Moreover, little formal documentation existed to substantiate its internal controls in place.
During the review, some financial data was required to be restated due to a material accounting error.  Due to this added complexity, the level of scrutiny performed by the external auditors was extensive.

CTS Impact Solution: By leveraging the CTS SOX Toolkit, CTS managed the comprehensive SOX program and provided hands-on staff to perform all facets of the review including Financial, IT, and Entity-Level controls.

• Perform risk assessment based on COSO framework and AS 5
• Rationalize and document key controls, and underlying business processes
• Develop test plans and perform testing
• SAS 70 review of third-party service providers
• Analysis of deficiencies
• Remediation planning and oversight
• Anti-fraud controls review
• Liaison to Big 4 external auditors
• Audit Committee updates

Other Services:  Concurrently, this client required assistance with day-to-day accounting activities during peak periods including:

• SEC reporting
• Interim Accounting Manager to oversee transaction processing activities

Also, with its expansive network of telecommunications infrastructure, this client leased a high volume of real estate holdings nationwide. To automate the lease administration process, a new Lease Administration System was licensed. CTS Impact assisted with the data conversion and testing during the implementation of the new system.

To further diversify its vast real estate portfolio, this CTS Impact client expanded into a new segment; hotels, via acquisition of 3 major portfolios within an 8-month period.  With acquired hotel assets of over $2.5 billion, this client needed specific hotel accounting experience to manage this back office integration and standardization.
As Project Manager, CTS Impact provided hands-on hotel and hospitality industry expertise to manage the acquisition integration onto its corporate platform.  In addition to leveraging economies of scale, CTS Impact led the efforts to develop new business processes, along with new reporting tools and standard operating procedures.  Deploying CTS Impact staff with hands-on financial systems experience, the legacy Timberline financial system was seamlessly converted to JD Edwards.
Throughout the transition, until the client was able to hire on permanent staff, CTS Impact provided interim accounting and financial reporting staff to support these new operations.

Other CTS Impact Solutions:

• Financial Reporting and Systems
  • Purchase accounting and reconciliation
  • SEC reporting
  • Design new reporting tools
  • Implement Content Management System (iManage)
• Tax Compliance
  • Sales & use tax dispute investigation and resolution
  • Interim staffing-Federal, state & local income tax assistance
• Asset Management and Joint Ventures
  • Develop standard processes to monitor investments
  • Partner and lender reporting
  • Litigation support
• Internal Audit – SOS 404 Compliance
  • Risk assessment
  • Develop standard tools/templates
  • Document key controls
  • Perform testing
  • Remediation planning
  • Status reporting and Audit Committee updates

Background:
In the midst of unprecedented company growth, this global technology and social networking company’s reporting needs expanded in both complexity and volume. With multi-national operations in over 40 countries worldwide, a standardized and automated reporting tool was mission-critical to produce GAAP-basis consolidated financial statements.

Financial data needed to be mapped from many different financial systems, including multi-currency transactions in 35 different local currencies. Joint venture and minority interest ownership of certain entities were also key issues for the consolidation of financial results.

In anticipation of its planned initial public offering, Groupon accounting staff had limited SEC expertise on staff. Also, the financial and systems controls needed to be reviewed and documented to analyze any potential gaps.

CTS Impact Solution:

Financial Systems Design and Implementation

• Cloud-based financial reporting tool (Host Analytics)–Rapid design and deployment
• Chart of accounts design
• Integration with cloud-based general ledger system (NetSuite)

IPO readiness

• S-1 registration statement preparation support and disclosures
• Interim staffing–financial reporting and consolidations

Corporate Governance and Compliance

• Risk assessment of internal control environment
• Documentation of key controls and processes (Financial and IT)
• Analysis of potential gaps
• Remediation planning

Background: This publicly-held international pharmaceutical company was experiencing very rapid growth through multiple significant acquisitions. Each acquisition maintained their accounting records on different financial system platforms, so the client needed to migrate these disparate systems to a standard platform (SAP).
Also, prior to the roll-out of a new financial reporting tool (Adaptive Insights), the CTS Impact team maintained a parallel tool to perform the consolidation process, as well as the report validation process throughout the system implementation.

CTS Impact Solution:

CTS Impact needed to provide significant hands-on experience to assist this client in several ways simultaneously:

• Acquisition integration (3 major acquisitions within 1 year)
  • Account mapping to new chart of accounts
  • Reconciliation and analysis
  • System conversion from Great Plains Dynamics to SAP
    • Assist with process design
    • Testing
  • Document standard operating procedures (SOPs)
• Interim accounting activities
  • Backfill support for various accounting and financial reporting roles while client conducted hiring process for permanent hires
    • Monthly/quarterly/year-end close activities
    • Consolidations
    • Inventory accounting
  • Cross-training and transition to new permanent staff

Consistent with CTS Impact hands-on approach, while performing these roles, CTS Impact implemented process improvements to streamline the month-end close process.  In addition, CTS Impact documented standard operating procedures (at the desktop level) to provide cross-training for new hires.

Background: With the merger of 3 operating companies located across the U.S., this CTS Impact client needed to design and develop a standard back-office platform — business processes, policies & procedures, and systems, to support its integrated operations.  In addition, the back-office was being centralized to a new headquarters location

CTS Impact Solution: With a blend of hands-on experience with financial systems and processes, the CTS Impact team managed the following:

• Financial systems conversion (Great Plains Dynamics)
• Develop financial reporting and analysis tools
• Develop and document standard business processes and operating procedures
• Ramp-up staffing until permanent hires in place and cross-trained